Student 1969 + i-D 1991: How Anna Wintour and Edward Enninful started their journeys to the top
Two decades apart, the editors of the American and British editions of Condé Nast’s Vogue began their respective careers with modest contributions to prominent independent youth culture publications of their day.
As fashion editor and model, Anna Wintour appeared under the surname “Winter” for the knitwear spread she contributed to a 1969 issue of Richard Branson’s quasi-underground publication Student.
Twenty years ago, at the very beginning of his career, Enninful received an acknowledgement – with his Ghanaian birth-name Edward Enninfuo – for input into a streetwear feature in i-D January 1991. Enninful didn’t appear in the story, though his sister Akua was included.
These blink and-you’ll-miss-’em appearances set the scene for rapidly ascending career arcs for the talented pair.
Fifteen months after her Student cameo, Wintour was, at 22, fashion assistant at Harpers & Queen, where she made her mark creating exciting shoots working with such photographers as James Wedge before leaving for New York and a position on Harper’s Bazaar.
Less than a year after Enninful’s name-check, he was a 20-year-old editorial assistant at i-D, by which time he was regularly modelling for shoots styled by his great friend Simon Foxton. Soon Enninful would become fashion editor and then director of i-D before moving to Italian Vogue in 1998.
